PS AUDIO: Just because you can’t measure something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

15 April 2018

Paul McGowan:

Just because you observe something doesn’t mean you understand how to measure and repeat it.

We get confused a lot between the observations we make, the measurements we use to try and quantify those observations and the conclusions we draw from it all.

For example, when a listener observes a change in sound they can conclude it sounds better or worse based on those observations but not much more.

When a measurement based objectivist can’t measure anything that supports the listener’s observations, all that can be concluded is the measurements aren’t complete enough to do the job.

Neither can legitimately draw an accurate conclusion that explains the results.

In Brad Paulson’s insightful article Simple is better, he observes that simple crossovers in loudspeakers sound more musical than complex ones; despite the measurements that support the latter. What can we conclude from this?

I think the only meaningful conclusions are that our observations are not supported by the measurements so we need to change the measurements.